Dinner

A Father's Day dinner with my two young adult children. They are waiting for me at the table with a bouquet of flowers. 

We enjoyed an outdoor Indian meal at the same restaurant their mother and I came to on a date 27 years ago this month. The restaurant is located right behind the church we were eventually married in. 

We aren't married anymore. Things didn't go according to plan, such as it was. 

There was a lot of pain, for all of us. Pain that never should have been. And yet here we are sitting and eating together on Father's Day many years later. Talking to each other. Laughing. Arguing. A family. 

Driving home on a hot summer evening with hardly anyone else on the road, it takes some time to identify this feeling I feel. 

I think it's peace.